The present invention relates to an information terminal system for gaining information on components in a plant or adjusting the components when a maintenance worker, walking around in areas of the plant, maintains or inspects each component.
Heretofore, in monitoring a plant, a maintenance worker looks at each component, inspects the states of each component and adjusts each component if needed, as part of periodic maintenance, in counteractions response to an accident or at the time of a start-up operation. For adjustment of some components, cooperation between field workers and personnel in a central control room is needed. For this purpose, a maintenance worker inspects the states of components by observing meters or instruments attached to the components. Some the components have no indicator and only send information concerning the components to a remote central control room. And, in some cases, information concerning another component, remote from the component to be treated, is needed. Therefore, it is convenient for maintenance worker to bring a portable terminal device connected to a process control computer in order to gain component information or to set control data for components. A component in the field to be inspected or adjusted is identified, and information concerning the component is observed, or control data is set into the component, by connecting the portable terminal device to a connection terminal provided at the component, or by inputting a code for identifying the component to be inspected using an input means provided at the portable terminal device.
And, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open 267697/1987, there is disclosed a portable terminal system in which a bar-code reader is provided at the portable terminal system to read a bar-code indication labeled on each of the components in the field.
In a portable terminal system using the above-mentioned method of inputting the codes of components, all of a large number of components can not be treated and only a limited number of components can be processed, since it is necessary to memorize components by correlating each of the components to a name or a code indicating the component.
Further, by the above-mentioned portable terminal system, which connected to a connection terminal of a component, it is very complicated and difficult to gain information on all object components or to set control data into all demanded components, since control data can be set into only the component which is currently connected to the portable terminal system.
Further, in the above-mentioned portable terminal system which identifies a component by reading a bar-code of the component, work efficiency is bad and the certainty of component identification is also not good, since the range in which a bar-code can be read out by the terminal system is limited. For some of the components installed remotely from the place where work is possible, maintenance work is probably impossible.
Also, since it is frequently required to compare simultaneously information concerning various components installed in a huge building and to adjust components while referring to the states of other components, observation of the component state information or control data setting of components is limited, and the quickness and certainty of the work is unattainable, in the conventional devised terminal system.
Further, it is impossible to send a command for registering states of an indicated component to another component or to transfer information concerning a plurality of indicated components in a lump to another object.